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Your Photos of a Place Seen #ThroughFreshEyes

“It seems absurd to admit that in the whirl of daily life I missed so many small particularities of the place I called home for over 13 years. And yet I did.”

In an article for Sunday Review, Mahesh Rao returned to London and found a new perspective on once familiar things. We asked readers to submit their photos of a place they once overlooked – but now treasure. A selection of the submissions we received are published below, and you can view others on Instagram under the hashtag #ThroughFreshEyes. Captions have been edited for length and clarity.

Photo

San Francisco, California

“It hasn’t rained for years in San Francisco due to the drought. As I was walking home from work and looked up at this scene that I’ve passed many times during my commute and my lunch breaks, I suddenly saw my city in a different light.”

“I always dreaded the long commute to work. Number of faces with tired eyes would let out an impatient sigh as they lined up for the arrival of their ride. Within the chaos of traveling on our journey to work, school, or wherever we may need to rush to, the strangers we walk pass everyday are fresh new faces that we don’t really get the chance to see.”

“Paris is my hometown, district 11th is my neighbourhood. Suddenly one night of November 2015, the laughter, the footsteps, all the familiar street sounds stopped, and after a wide and deep silence, they were replaced by the holler of sirens and the humming of helicopters. After several weeks in astonishment, I had to leave and explore my neighbourhood, reclaiming these streets, restoring the outline of a welcoming world.”

“This is the Lyndon B. Johnson Library at the University of Texas at Austin. I went to school at this University and never once looked twice at the LBJ Library, despite spending a good amount of time here. On my last visit home, my mother and I took a walk around this building, and architecture I once found stark and cold I now find quite beautiful contrasting the giant oaks and pecans of home.”

“I had never seen this while growing up in #lascrucesnm but now that I’m visiting my hometown as an adult, I’ve been finding the hidden places. Something amazing about graveyards in this part of the country is that they aren’t depressing but more like a party for the dead.”

“And while I was about letting go the places where me and her used to meet, I’ve chose in the end to confront my deepest memories, to keep visiting the same rooftop of Casablanca’s church, and remembering that the anchors will weaken then completely disappear and the breakup will no longer bother me.”

“At my great grandparent’s house in Karachi. This door is 55 years old and it has suffered through the roughest weathers. It has been through one of the strongest earthquakes in history. It has also been through the India - Pakistan war (1965 & 1971). This place holds a lot of history that I didn’t know about before my 6-day trip to Pakistan.”

“As a kid born and raised in the united states, i hated visiting my mother’s home village of bauan — it seemed dirty and loud to me, the colors searingly bright, the smells strange and strong. all of this merged to synergistic effect in the village palengke, a traditional market where meat and fish sat in the open air under constant assault by heat and flies. as an adult, i live in los angeles and work in entertainment. i increasingly find myself needing experiences that activate all of my senses first-hand, and the bauan palengke, once overpowering, has become my reference point for all things visceral.”

“Three years ago, after ten years in a big city like Rome, I changed my perspective and I decided to come back to my origins, in my hometown Avola, in Sicily. I chose it to enjoy the life simplicity…. and in three years I put into production the fields I have. During this year I had my first production of extra virgin olive oil and almonds. The place of this photo is ‘Tonnara di Vendicari o di Bajuto,’ for me is a perfect example of Sicilian essence.”

“It’s a grey little town that one typically wants to run away from (when young). The railway station was always the starting point for getting away, but I never really looked at it back then. You just get onto the train and off you go… Now, decades later, it has become very special whenever going back to Germany. I truly love it now.”

“I live in Athens and, apart from the astonishing archaeological places, our city is full of blocks and old buildings, grey and concrete everywhere. Until I found in some streets, here and there, graffitis like this one. Beautiful and meaningful street art that was giving a new colour in the buildings. I think this one is my favourite because every time you see this you feel that you’re not alone, that there is hope and if something bad happen someone will catch you, someone will hold your hand and will help you. I think it’d be good for greek people to see more of these images, especially in a difficult time like this one that the country is going through.”

“This is lunchtime in the Shinjuku area, the centre of high-rise buildings in Tokyo. A lot of the chairs remain empty once the temperatures drop. I didn’t see the geometry of this place when I first visited Tokyo.”

“Growing up in a small community didn’t sustain my interest, so I left as soon as I could. When work and family brought me back home years later, my big-city blinders began to wear off and I started to see details. One morning, I suddenly noticed the tiny building with a crooked porch-roof that sits across the street from my kitchen window. Sitting under a big blue winter sky, it mirrored my heart after a recent ferocious heartbreak – battered and solitary. But the perfect sky reassured me that this is still a shockingly beautiful world. I’m comforted by the subtle yet tremendous beauty in my rural surroundings and in the solidarity of neighbors. And I’ve found that people here often lead bigger, braver lives than the ones I knew in cities.”